Kultur 5—A New Swedish Brand That Elevates the Handmade—Speaks to Our Uncertain Times
Some would say launching a brand in the midst of a pandemic is a bold, even foolish, move. Not Jonatan Härngren. This independent Swedish designer is moving forward with plans to release the first pieces—a collection of silver jewelry—from his label Kultur 5. “I didn’t count on COVID-19, but this is a really personal project,” says Härngren. “The beauty of working with one material and not being dependent on many external producers and suppliers [means] that my work can still thrive in the quarantine,” he adds.
Pandemic or not, Kultur 5 was never meant to operate on fashion time. It’s a slow project in the sense that Härngren—the former creative head of the menswear line L’homme Rouge—has decided each project will launch when it’s ready, no sooner and no later. “The most important thing is that it comes out right,” he says.
Just as many of us are suspended between “real life” and quarantine, so this designer sees his outside-of-the-box products existing in a state between perfect and not perfect, finished and not finished. The homemade quality of the pieces speaks both to natural variety and to the DIY ethos Härngren has made use of since he was a skateboarding teenager growing up deep in the countryside. “We always took what we had and tried to express ourselves through things that we made out of nothing; that’s what I did in this project as well. I went to the sea and took some stones and thought, What can I make out of this?”
Several of Härngren’s rings are unfinished bands, a design that gives form to the ethos of the brand, which is to explore “the space in between.” This Swede’s M.O. is bringing his past into a sustainable future. Teenage memories of freedom, time spent with friends, and what he describes as the poetic, calming nature of the sea are the ephemeral elements forged into Kultur 5’s first products. They’ll be manna to the quarantined.
Photo: Jonatan Härngren / Courtesy of the photographer1/12Kultur 5 /1 Relief thick ring
Photo: Jonatan Härngren / Courtesy of the photographer2/12Kultur 5 /1 Relief thick ring
“Silver is a clean material, really raw, and easy to work with.”
Photo: Jonatan Härngren / Courtesy of the photographer3/12Kultur 5
Photo: Jonatan Härngren / Courtesy of the photographer4/12Kultur 5 /1 One-stone ring
“I took some stones from [my hometown] and I hammered the stone into the iron to get an exact copy, a replica,” Härngren says. These forms are later cast in silver.
Photo: Jonatan Härngren / Courtesy of the photographer5/12Kultur 5
